DFA holds grand opening for Garden City plant

Garden City, KS(westernkansasnews.com) Thursday the new Dairy Farmers of America plant in Garden City held their grand opening.

Construction of the facility began in October 2015 and the first load of milk was delivered in late September of this year. The plant has brought 66 new jobs to the area. The plant produces whole, skim and nonfat dairy milk powder, as well as cream.

The new plant is 270,000 square foot that will receive four million pounds of milk a day when at full capacity. The milk will be produced into 550,000 pounds of whole milk powder everyday to be shipped out domestically in the United States and all over the world.

DFA Garden City is a partnership between DFA and 12 of its member farms in Southwest Kansas and will help support the industry’s continued growth in the region as well as meet the rising demand for U.S. dairy both domestically and globally.

Thursday’s ribbon cutting included several speakers including Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, Program Manager for DFA Garden City Alan McEntee and Mayor of Garden City Melvin Dale.

Governor Brownback call the opening of the plant a “big day”.

“This is going to make the dairy industries in this region and this state blossom even more, this is going to continue to move forward the dairy industry here,” said Brownback.

Program Manager Alan McEntee said the plant makes good economic sense in Garden City.

“The plant is in the center of a local milk pool that needs to find a processing home,” said McEntee, “it’s got to do with the economic process of transporting the milk and we’ve got some of the best dairy farmers in the world in southwest Kansas.”